English 254 - Many Peoples of the US

No one course could begin to do justice to this title. Over 400 different indigenous cultures inhabited the territory for some 20,000 years before European conquest began. Africans from all of West Africa and smaller numbers from the whole continent arrived with the Spaniards and millions as slaves for English settlers. Immigrants from every European country came in the nineteenth century. Asia began to send its people as early as the 1840s. Later mainly Chinese in small numbers, Japanese, Filipinos, and some Koreans continued, though the great movement from Asia came with the revision of our immigration laws in 1965. The whole world is represented in this country.

The reading in the course will be primarily literary: memoirs, stories, novels, and poems. There will also regularly be short readings for some historical context. Much of the reading will focus on white working-class writings, African American literature, and on work from different Latino and Asian American countries of origin.

Limited to 65 students. Fall semester. Professor Emeritus O’Connell.